Zedekiah

Man, these words.

Hezekiah won it back, but Zedekiah, the last king of the Jews, lost it to the Chaldeans, from whom it came into Persia, thence to the Greeks, and finally to the Romans, and with the last of it remained for all time.

So this great treasure ultimately wound up in Rome.

The people were soon left without means to purchase the corn that they needed.

He was not a king, prophet, or military commander.

He was a Cushite and an official in the court of King Zedekiah.

Yet when powerful men acted unjustly, others remained silent.

Ebed-Melech acted.

He warned that Jerusalem would fall and that those who surrendered to the Babylonians would live.

Several officials accused Jeremiah of weakening the people's resolve and demanded his death.

King Zedekiah surrendered Jeremiah into their hands, and they lowered the prophet into a cistern filled with mud, leaving him there to die.

Then Ebed-Melech heard what happened.

And the king of Babylon, remember this is Nebuchadnezzar, made Mattaniah.

His father's brother, so this would be a son of Josiah, but the uncle of Jehoiakim, he made him to be king and instead he changed his name to Zedekiah.

We're gonna learn more about him next chapter.

Zedekiah was 21 when he began to reign.

He reigned 11 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah, not the prophet Jeremiah, different Jeremiah.

He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that Jehoiakim had done, for though the anger of the Lord, for through the anger of the Lord, it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah until he cast them out from his presence that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon." Now, I wanted to read those verses because it ends the chapter.

Here's the point I wanna make to you today.

And they built forts against it round about.

and the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

Now on the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine prevailed in the city, there was no bread for the people of the land, and the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which is by the king's garden.

Now the Chaldees were against the city round about, and the king went the way toward the plain.

So this goes back, like if you're reading the Bible, you go in the Old Testament, you see this great contest of Old Testament kings of Judah or kings of Israel, and then prophets would come.

So that's all the way back from the first king Saul to the very last king of Zedekiah.

You see prophets coming.

interacting with these kings, calling nations to repentance, calling kings to be able to submit themselves to the word of God.

Mm-hmm.

And we have with Lehi, right, in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, King of Judah.

Um, and, and then he says the second one is a divine confrontation.

So, you know, some majestic glorified being, or in this case, God.

The nations think that their destiny is entirely in their own hands, but God's purpose is being worked out and dedicated Bible students diligently watch events, trying to see more clearly how the various prophecies apply.

We read in 2 Kings 18 of the faith of the good king Zedekiah in Jerusalem, standing firm against the boasting of the invading Assyrians, which is called Iraq today.

We will read tomorrow of how the prophet Isaiah comes on the scene and through God's Spirit sees and says what God will cause to happen because Hezekiah is a specially spiritual-minded king.

In contrast, the prophet Ezekiel chapter 8 is caused to be carried in vision to Jerusalem and made aware of the abominations taking place in the temple.